The demand for wireless resources in terms of bandwidth and throughput is ever increasing. One approach under consideration to meet this increasing demand is through virtualization of networks, in which network resources and functionality is downloaded into one or more existing network nodes to provide a dynamic service level capability for a customer service provider and its users as and when appropriate.
From the perspective of the customer, it has obtained a separate telecommunications network for its service(s), from the perspective of the mobile network operator (MNO) offering such service capability, the MNO's network resources and functions are shared with other VNs in a manner substantially transparent to the customer and its users.
In some approaches, a customer may subscribe for one or more so-called virtual network “slices” of network resources. Typically each network slice is dynamically allocated to provide certain relatively homogeneous kind and level of services to a group of relatively homogeneous end users or subscribers of the customer. In some examples, a plurality of the customer's end users may make up a user group of the customer. By way of non-limiting example, a customer may be any one or more of a corporate customer, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and a vertical service provider such as, by way of non-limiting example, a vehicle to vehicle (V2V) service provider, a streaming service provider, and/or an electrical meter reading service provider. By way of non-limiting example, a network slice may be allocated to a customer to provide service level capability to a utility subscriber and its remotely-located smart-meters. In some examples, the service is provided in a network slice.
The allocation of one or more network slices of network resources in a network node involves the instantiation of a network slice, for example by downloading from cloud-based resources, of certain network functionality into an existing network node.
In some examples, the network slice instance (NSI) is created exclusively for the VN service. FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing an example of the life cycle of an NSI that is created exclusively for a VN service.
The process begins with a customer request 1110 for a VN service from the MNO. In some cases, the customer is provided with access to a network capability database 1120 of the MNO to understand what service types and/or configurations the MNO can provide. Eventually, assuming that the customer sees that the capability to service the customer request is available, the customer negotiates with the MNO and the customer request is formalized into a service level agreement (SLA) 1130 that defines the service capability that the MNO will provide to the customer in support of the service request for use by the customer's end users
The SLA 1130 may specify such details such as the particular end user authentication mechanism, the demands expected of the customer's different end users or devices, or of groups of end users or devices, relative priorities to be assigned to different functions and processing, techniques to control overloading, performance monitoring and feedback criteria, charging policies and overall policies such as how and when the service capability can be amended and/or renegotiated.
The NSI may be created from a network slice template (NST). The NST describes the function chains that will be instantiated to provide the service capability defined by the SLA 1130. In some cases, there is an existing NST that is suitable, in that the NST matches or otherwise can provide or support the requested VN service capabilities, that can be accessed from an NST database 1140.
However, in some cases there is no existing NST that would be suitable to satisfy the capabilities defined by the SLA 1130, and a new NST is created and may be added to the NST database 1140.
However arrived at, the capabilities of the function chains of the selected NST may then be fleshed out or completed in a network slice descriptor (NSD) 1150. The NSD 1150 adds further details by defining and assigning values to the various attributes described and/or listed in the selected NST corresponding to the services that the NSI intends to support. Such attributes may be related to the NF, performance, faults, charging, transport link, isolation and/or security to define capabilities corresponding to and to give effect to the VN service covered by the SLA 1130.
NF attributes may include without limitation, admission control, capacity in terms of number of users, storage, latency (function execution speed), usage monitoring relating to a specific service, slice and/or flow), traffic throughput, location, geography, communication speed (along connected transport links, including without limitation in the cloud), times related to virtual function life cycle actions (activation time, deactivation time, creation time and/or termination time) and/or resources for each of the functions as well as the specific topology of the functions to be instantiated.
Performance-related attributes may include, without limitation, overall capacity, QoE, network key performance indicators (KPI) and/or individual end-user related performance.
Transport link-related attributes may include, without limitation, link end points, link usage methods, capacity, quality of experience (QoE) and/or quality of service (QoS).
Once the NSD 1150 has been defined and/or refined sufficiently, the NSI can be instantiated or created 1160 and the corresponding network functions (NFs) and resources configured and allocated. As well, a customer service instance (CSI) may be correspondingly created 1165. The CSI handles the interactions 1161 of the customer and its users with the NSI.
Once the NSI has been created 1160 with the CSI 1165, the NSI enters an operational mode 1170 and the CSI enters an operational mode 1175 with interactions 1171 therebetween, during which the end user traffic of the VN service instantiated by the NSI is handled.
During the operational mode 1170, the MNO attempts to ensure that both the) KPI of the network, the QoE of the services provided by the NSI and the QoE of the customer's individual end users are satisfied by monitoring the NSI. Furthermore, the MNO handles end user authentication for new sessions, performs traffic routing and/or traffic monitoring and handles accounting and charging.
From time to time, there may be requests for modification of the configuration of the NSI 1180. The request may be internally generated by the MNO if the KPI and/or QoE are not being satisfied. Alternatively, the request may originate from the CSI 1185 and communicated to the NSI 1181. In either case, an NSI modification function 1182 may be invoked, whereby the configuration of the NSI is altered before the operational mode 1170 is resumed.
Eventually, the VN service will be terminated, which may be communicated 1191 from the CSI to the NSI, resulting in termination of both the CSI 1195 and the NSI 1190.
In some cases, the MNO may expect the receipt from different customers, of VN service requests of the same or a similar type. Alternatively a customer may request the capability and/or the MNO may wish to add additional requested VN services of a similar type to an existing NSI, without terminating the NSI and creating a NSI with expanded service capability. Accordingly, there may be a need for a system and method for instances of slices for VN services that is not subject to one or more limitations of the prior art.
This background is intended to provide information that may be of possible relevance to the present invention No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.